Topic: The Rock

The Rock

And Y'shua answered and said unto him, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood have not revealed this unto you, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto you, That you are Peter and upon this Rock I will build my church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto you the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and what ever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and what ever you shall loose on earth will be loosed in heaven...

Many have a mistaken view of authority in the Word of God, and in embracing these wrong views, they inadvertently undermine their own authority for ministry in God's Kingdom. God's authority is transfered in the Spiritual realm by public ceremonies and with physical contact between the giver and receiver of this authority. This is true of blessings (Jacob to Joseph's sons), anointing of Kings and Priests (Moses to Aaron and Samuel to David) and in one case among the prophets (Elijah to Elisha). This public ceremony was consistently carried into the New Testament, with the laying on of hands to commission people to the ministry (note the breathing of Y'shua to the Apostles and the ordination of Paul and Barnabus). God does everything decently and in order and this transferral of Authority is also carried over into the Atoning Sacrifices in which the "authority" or "power" of our sins were transferred, originally, to the animals and then perfectly to Y'shua. It is not our position in the Church or Kingdom to deny this principle or reject it or ridicule it for it is a principle of transferal of authority that God ordained and commanded.

The Protestants, in in their hatred of the Catholic Church, utilized an argument that is not Scriptural, that led to Theological error and, in the process, undermines Ecclesiastical Authority.

Their exegesis of Mt 16:18 is founded solely upon their hostility to the Romanish Doctrine and, because of this, is unreliable especially when, to accomplish this, they break several well known principles of Hermeneutics.

For instance, one well known and acknowledged rule of interpretation is to understand how the hearers understood his words. Thus, the Protestants make much of the Greek, and totally disregard the fact that these words were spoken in Aramaic in which there is no difference between Rock (Petros) and rock (petra). There is no stone and Rock (or boulder), but all is simply rock.

Second, they totally disregard the Scriptural interpretation of types and supply their own. The typology of stones is almost everywhere in Scripture (if not everywhere), used of people that God is building into a spiritual temple (see use of "bar" in Hebrew with its suffixes). They then lay aside this Scripturally supplied typology and apply it, not to Peter, but to his Confession.

They totally ignore the principle of not forming a major Doctrine from one verse, and brush aside the Scripturally recorded fulfillment of Y'shua's words that Peter was used by Him to build the Church among the Apostles (Acts 1), upon the Ten Tribes (Acts 2), upon the Samaritans (Acts 8) and among the Gentiles (Acts 10) before He sent Paul to them. And even the ordination of Barnabus and Paul (Acts 13) can be traced back to Peter (Acts 4:36).

They even misunderstand the Greek which many of them claim to be Masters of, for, the only reason for the difference between Petra (feminine) and Petros (masculine) is solely to take a noun and make it into a name. The exact same process is fulfilled in Pauo and Paulos.

They throw out the original Church teaching on this, which recognized no such difference in these two words because, as the first rule of interpretation (which they also break) which led to the original Church Doctrine is that the simplest (contextual and literal) interpretation is assuredly the correct one. They spiritually apply the rock to a concept and not to Peter as our Lord obviously did, as the description of the New Jerusalem will easily verify which tells us the Apostles are the Foundation Stones of that Heavenly Edifice.

So, in forcing their interpretation from one verse, they must break six major principles of sound Biblical Interpretation solely in reaction to the Romanish Doctrine. The proof of this latter statement is simply seen in the fact that this teaching (Peter is just a pebble and his confession is the Rock) was not recorded anywhere in Church History until the times of the Reformation.

So, like it or not, regardless of the errors of some in this regard, there is an Ecclesiastical Succession, if you will, where Authority from God flows out to His people in direct succession. The position of the Apostolate was solely for the founding of the Church as Y'shua specified, but the Authority that he gave them subsequently passed to all the Church.

And thus, when we undermine the Rock or Foundation of the Church, we weaken our own positions of Authority. And this actually explains the dysfunctional condition of the Protestant World today and the fact that there are about 60,000 different Protestant Denominations currently on record. And until this condition is dealt with by the Protestants, most of their 'ministries' and individuals will remain impotent in their commission and that is why, today, thousands of Protestants are, literally, loosing their faith.

I repeat: If we all tried to be more like Peter instead of belittling him and the other Saints, perhaps, one day, we also might walk on water.

Editor's Notes : May 9, 2010 :

Concerning the Catholic's View of Apostolic Succession, we can throw out the Protestant view for a couple more reasons, not the least of which is because I have proved that, in fact, the Protestants are the Nicolaitans of the book of Revelation who, like Korah, rebelled against God's Priesthood.

Be that as it may, the point is that the Catholic view is exactly the same as the Orthodox, Anglican and the Oriental and that being 2000 years old and includes, to a certain extent, their understanding of said Apostolic Succession and the vicarship of the Priests or Bishop or Patriarchs.

The only thing that the Catholic Church got wrong was in trying to Lord it over the rest of the Churches and the Gentile nations but this was a product of the social environment of the Dark Ages and, in fact, was symbolized or its occurrence was set in motion, spiritually, when Pete lobbed off the ear of the High Priest's servant (for, really, Heresy and Apostasy when you think about it, as well as presiding over the death of Ananias and Sapphira - guilty of Blasphemy for Lying to the Holy Spirit) which set up, for lack of a better analogy, a kind of spiritual resonance which ended up being played out during the Church's subsequent history, by Rome who went about killing Heretics and Apostates and Blasphemers even though some of them probably were not - i.e. some of the Orthodox and Orientals. One must qualify that by also pointing out that each and every Christian denomination on the planet has persecuted other denominations and religions at one point or another and, certainly, the Catholics don't have a monopoly on bigotry.

The Catholic understanding of the Infallibility of the Pope is denied by the latter two groups however, I have shown that in the case with Caiaphas the Holy Spirit did in fact speak Ex Cathedra (literally from the Seat of Moses when Caiaphas said that it was necessary for one man to die for the people) and, further, both these latter groups consider some of the Church Councils in the past to have been a form of Ex Cathedra. I am not saying, emphatically, that the Catholics are correct in their understanding, only that the Holy Spirit could speak from the Pope Ex Cathedra if He so chose.

Now, what the Protestants won't tell you, and which I finally had to learn from the Catholics, is that the speech about Pete being the Rock occurred in Caesarea Philippi which contains a huge cliff (pictured at the top of this post) and Y'shua was comparing Peter to that thar very cliff - that ain't no pebble, homie.

Finally, I just remembered this while I was editing another post. Y'shua's answer to Peter - if you are a literalist - implies (actually requires) that Peter (and possibly the 12 and maybe a whole host of his disciples) will be alive and on the earth at the time of the Return and that, therefore, Uncle Pete became immortal via the Eucharist - and you, yourselves, as those who wait for their Lord to return from the wedding - isn't that, like, called a Double Imperative or something like that?